There are known printers that print on printing sheets such as printing paper or printing film by thermal transfer or laser. Usually, such known printers include a sheet storing block for storing a plurality of printing sheets in layers, a pick-up block for ejecting one of the printing sheets stored in the sheet storing block, a delivery block for delivering the printing sheet ejected from the pick-up block, a printing block for printing an image on the printing sheet delivered by the delivery block, and a discharge block for discharging the printing sheet on which an image was printed on at the printing block. Each block is disposed inside a chassis.
Such known printers may be a so-called horizontal type wherein a printing sheet is delivered from the storing block to the sheet discharge block so that the surface of the printing sheet faces the vertical direction or may be a dual-purpose type wherein the printing sheet is disposed horizontally or the printing sheet is disposed vertically so that the printing sheet is delivered from the sheet storing block to the discharge block as it faces the horizontal direction.
The dual-purpose type printer may be disposed according to the width of the installation location. In this way, the installation location of the printer may be flexibly selected, and the usability of the printer is improved.
Since the dual-purpose type printer may be disposed vertically, the installation area required for disposing the printer may be decreased. In particular, for computed tomography performed in a hospital, the printer may be adjoined to the tomographic apparatus or to a computer disposed in a medical examination room since a large installation area is not required. Hence, medical service may be speeded up and simplified.
For such a printer, a storage tray is disposed in the sheet storage block for storing printing sheets. The storage tray is disposed inside a slot on the chassis.
The storage tray may include a sheet storage case, which is a planular box with an opening for storing sheets, and a cover, which is for covering the opening of the sheet storage case (e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-101258). The cover is disposed to prevent the printing sheets from falling out of the sheet storage case. In particular, for a vertically disposed printer, a cover is required since the printing sheets can easily fall out of the sheet storage case.
When the storage tray including the printing sheets is disposed and fixed into the slot, the pick-up block ejects one of the printing sheets from the storage tray and the delivery block delivers the sheet to the printing block.
Printing sheets are ejected from or placed in the storage tray while the storage tray is pulled out of the slot.
As described above, to eject or insert a printing sheet from/into the storage tray of a known printer, the storage tray must be pulled out of the slot of the chassis and then the cover must be removed. The procedure for discharging or inserting a sheet of printing paper from or to the storage tray is troublesome and inefficient.
Moreover, once the storage tray is completely pulled out of the slot, it is difficult to put it back; thus, usability is low.
To store the printing sheets while the storage tray is completely pulled out of the chassis, the storage tray must be strong enough to support the weight of the printing sheets to be stored in the storage tray. For this reason, reinforcements might have to be disposed on the storage tray or the thickness of the components might have to be increased for reinforcement.